exhibition
24 November 2016 > 17 April 2017

LETIZIA BATTAGLIA. JUST FOR PASSION

#LetiziaBattaglia  #JustForPassion

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opening hours

Monday closed
Tuesday to Sunday 11 am – 7 pm

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Gallery 1
curated by Paolo Falcone, Margherita Guccione and Bartolomeo Pietromarchi

Over 200 photographs, contact sheets and vintage prints from the great photographers own archive, together with magazines, publications, films and interviews.

Not just the “Photographer of the Mafia” but also a witness to life and society in our country: Letizia Battaglia is recognised as one of the most important contemporary photographers, not only for shots firmly present in the collective consciousness, but also for the civic and ethical value she brings to the practice of photography.

A major solo exhibition testifying to 40 years of Italian life and society

An uninterrupted album passing from the protests in the piazzas of Milan in the Seventies to the face of Pier Paolo Pasolini, from the many deaths attributed to the mafia, to the unconscious elegance of the little girls of the Cala quarter in Palermo; and then the religious processions, the butchering of the Sicilian coasts, the faces of Piersanti Mattarella, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, through to the ferocious boss Leoluca Bagarella.

A 360° portrait reflecting the intensity that characterises all aspects of her work: from photography to political commitment, from publishing to the theatre and film and through to the recent institution of the Centro internazionale di fotografia in Palermo.


Cataloghi della mostra

Full bio

Letizia Battaglia

The work of Letizia Battaglia is distinguished by her impassioned social and political commitment. For 30 years she has photographed her land, Sicily, with crude and painful images in black and white, denouncing the activities of the mafia with courageous and incisive reportages for the daily paper L’Ora of Palermo. Convinced of the validity of…

Full bio

The work of Letizia Battaglia is distinguished by her impassioned social and political commitment. For 30 years she has photographed her land, Sicily, with crude and painful images in black and white, denouncing the activities of the mafia with courageous and incisive reportages for the daily paper L’Ora of Palermo.
Convinced of the validity of civic commitment as a factor of change, over the course of the years she has put her talent and passion as a photographer, director, publisher and environmentalist at the service of diverse causes, from women’s issues to environmental problems and through to prisoners’ rights in her various roles as town councillor and department head and regional representative.
Patrolling the coast to the east of Palermo, assigned to her within the ambit of the atlante italiano0003 project, she has photographed places blighted by evident signs of degradation, with strong, direct images of elevated formal coherence. However, it is a degradation that, as the very detailed captions underline, is just one of the many consequences of a moral and civil decline. Degradation that may only be redeemed by determined participation. Like that of Letizia Battaglia who has successfully reconciled art, commitment, conscience and courage.


photogallery